


Bloodied Optimism

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gore, M/M, lots of blood, mentioned Yasha/Beau, wizards are squishy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Caleb didn't see the troll until it was too late.





	Bloodied Optimism

**Author's Note:**

> It's just so much fun to write these two...  
> Set some time after what's happening in the campaign right now, in a future that will almost certainly never happen. Much of this will get disproved as the series continues but what can you do!

Usually when a fight was over they all took a breather and regrouped, checking the bodies of their foes for potential loot and gathering up any weapons that had been thrown in the fight. It was standard procedure. But as soon as this battle was over, Fjord ran to Caleb.

The cluster of trolls that had ambushed them hadn’t been too difficult to dispatch individually, but there had been a lot of them and it was impossible to keep track of them all at once. Fjord had taken a couple of them down and when he turned back to check on his party, there was only one left. And it had found Caleb.

Their wizard stayed out of the main fray whenever possible, which was always for the best considering spell attacks at range were his speciality and he never wore armour. Fjord had to admit it helped him worry less knowing Caleb was out of immediate harm’s way most of the time, but right now harm had found itself right at Caleb’s feet.

The troll had lashed out before Caleb had had chance to fire off a defensive spell, and long before Fjord was able to get close enough to do anything. Piercing black claws raked across Caleb’s stomach, cutting through clothes and skin like water and drawing rivers of blood. Caleb dropped to the floor, keeling over from the pain and letting out a cry that Fjord never wanted to hear again. Before the troll could take another swipe, Beau delivered a swift kick to the back of its head, snapping its neck with a brutal noise that Fjord couldn’t help but relish in, given the circumstances.

Not slowing for one moment, Fjord leaped over the body of one of the trolls Molly had dealt with and skidded to a stop beside his boyfriend. He kneeled beside him, carefully guiding him to sit up so they could see the full extent of the damage, and really hoping Caleb was still breathing. He couldn’t watch him die for the second time in one year.

As soon as Caleb’s injuries were visible, everyone wished they weren’t. The inside of his abdomen was on display in ways it should never be, and blood was dripping from the corners of his mouth. He was just about conscious, his eyes glazed over with woozy haze and his head lolling back against Fjord’s shoulder – too heavy for him to hold it up himself.

When Caleb’s eyes focused a little more, Fjord was the first thing he saw, and he managed a painful smile.

“Angel,” he said, barely moving his lips.

It took Fjord a couple of seconds to work out what he’d said but as soon as he did he couldn’t help but blush.

“Not an angel. Just me,” he corrected, fighting the urge to cry as he reached down to put pressure on the wound across Caleb’s stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.  
“Better than an angel,” Caleb whispered weakly, even as he winced at Fjord’s hands on tender flesh.

Fjord pressed a kiss to Caleb’s sweaty forehead, not about to disagree with him whilst he was bleeding out. There was a movement beside him that he absently registered as Nott rushing up, and he was glad she couldn’t see the worst of the wound under his hands. She shouldn’t have to see her friend like that.

“Jester?” Fjord called, looking over his shoulder to see the tiefling hurrying over.

She dropped down on the other side of Caleb, trying to hide her horror at the state the troll had left him in.  
“I can try,” she said, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. She’d already cast a lot of spells and she wasn’t sure she had the energy in her for one more.

Not liking the sound of _try_ , Fjord watched closely as Jester put her hands on Caleb’s chest and closed her eyes, clearly focusing. The usual aura of blue energy that would radiate from her palms never came, and suddenly things felt a lot more real.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” Jester shook her head, backing away a little with fear in her eyes. She had one job, she was _the_ cleric, and Caleb might die because she couldn’t gather together enough power to cast one simple spell. “I don’t have the energy. I need to sleep.”

Fjord gritted his teeth, knowing it wasn’t her fault – she’d used her spells on helping them earlier, after all – but slowly getting more frustrated at the situation.  
“Healing potions? Anyone?” he tried, scanning round at the circle of their friends as they’d gathered around Caleb, all looking on helplessly. When a chorus of shaking heads and regret was returned to him, he growled. “This isn’t fucking happening.”  
“Hey. I’m okay,” Caleb tried in an attempt to reassure him, but he stumbled over slurred words and blood was still seeping into his clothing around the wound.

Fjord mentally went through any other option they might have to help him. He’d never cursed himself more for not knowing a healing spell or two himself – they’d never seemed as interesting as something deadly. But right now he’d have given up every spell he knew in order to know one that might save Caleb’s life. He knew exactly one spell that would increase his own health, but he couldn’t heal anyone else with it. Except… It was a spell he’d learned from Caleb.

“That spell you taught me? Cast it,” he insisted, trying not to make it sound like an order. He was too frantic to remember to be polite.

Smiling slightly through the pain, Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Which one?”

He’d taught Fjord as many spells as he could, but he couldn’t see how damaging the corpses of already defeated bad guys was going to help the wound in his stomach stop bleeding.

Fjord searched his mind for the specifics of the spell but he wasn’t as diligent as Caleb when it came to recording names. All he needed to cast was intent, which he always memorised. Much of the extra fluff like names and the precise backstory of where Caleb had learned a specific spell didn’t usually stick.  
“The vampire one,” he tried, unable to remember anything else.

Caleb knew his mind was slower with the amount of blood he’d lost and the pain coursing through each vein, but it was an additional agony to try to sift through his memories and have it take so long to land on what Fjord was talking about. This was usually his forte.

If he understood correctly then the spell Fjord was talking about was pretty basic necromantic casting. He didn’t like using it often, siphoning off someone else’s life-force didn’t really sit well with him even if the person was evil, but he’d made use of it a few times in battle when he’d needed to. And he had indeed taught it to Fjord a few months back. Still, he didn’t understand how it was going to help.  
“ _Vampiric touch_? There’s no one to take life from – he was the last guy,” he forced out the words as he gestured weakly to the troll body, confused and certain he was missing something.

Shaking his head, Fjord shifted his hands so he could keep putting pressure on the wound with one and take Caleb’s hand with the other, bracing for the pain that he hoped would come.

“Cast it on me, Caleb,” he said simply.

With all of the little strength he had left, Caleb pushed Fjord’s hand away, horrified at the idea.  
“What? No. Absolutely not,” he refused. It was a painful spell. It would involve stripping life from the man he loved for his own benefit, and he never would.  
“You need the strength and I don’t. Please, come on. I have some to spare,” Fjord reasoned. He’d been lucky in the battle, dodging the majority of the trolls’ attempts to claw at him. It was only fair to pass that good fortune along.  
“It _hurts_ ,” Caleb tried to reason, resisting the urge to cough up what he was pretty sure would be more blood.

“I know it does, but right now you’re lying in a pool of your own blood,” Fjord snapped. The panic he was trying to supress was refusing to stay down the more desperate he got. A little pain was nothing if it helped Caleb. A lot of pain would still be nothing. He would gladly trade their places entirely if he could.

Their audience of friends seemed to slowly realise their attention wasn’t going to be much help. This was between Caleb and Fjord now. Jester stayed, digging the healers kit out of her bad and rifling through it for anything that might help with such a big wound. Nott was equally as hesitant to step back, but she wasn’t sure she could do anything helpful so she sat at Caleb’s feet, hoping she was out the way, and stayed quiet.  
“Really, I’m fine. Just help me up,” Caleb said, struggling to push off his hands and biting back a yell of pain when he moved his stomach.

Jester reached out immediately to push him back down by the shoulders. The less he moved, the better.  
“You’re not going anywhere,” she tutted. What spells he did or did not cast on Fjord were not of her business, but she was going to do the best to make him stable considering she knew him and was pretty certain he wasn’t about to hurt the warlock for his own sake.

“Cast the spell. I can take it.” Fjord took Caleb’s hand again, pretending not to see the blood that was clinging to their fingers.  
“I won’t hurt you,” Caleb refused.

This time he didn’t push Fjord’s hand away. He wasn’t going to cast a spell through it, but he wanted to hold it all the same.

“I want you to,” Fjord sighed. He wasn’t begging, but he was close to resorting to it if he had to.

Jester couldn’t resist the opportunity to pipe up.  
“Kinky,” she said with a grin.

Fjord ignored her, too focused on his wizard to register what she was saying, but Caleb smiled a little. Comedy felt good right about now, when everything else, save for Fjord’s touch, felt like death. Still, he had a terrible idea to talk Fjord out of.

“This isn’t going to happen,” he insisted, trying to sound firm and final. It was difficult to do when his entire body was shaking.

“I won’t let you die.”

Fjord didn’t know how the whole resurrection thing worked, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t an infinite guarantee. It could go wrong, there was a finite number of resurrections a person could endure before their spirit was lost completely to the gods.  
“I promise I’m not going to die,” Caleb tried, but the vow was empty. He could feel himself slipping away. If it wasn’t for everyone he now called a friend, he’d probably already have let go.  
“I think if you sneezed right now, you might break that promise,” Fjord diagnosed with one eyebrow raised.  “Please, cast the spell. I can’t see you like this. Cay… You’re torn up. There’s so much blood.”

His voice was gentle. Worried. Blood was seeping up around where his hand still covered Caleb’s stomach and there couldn’t be much of it left in the wizard’s body if the pool around his hips was any reliable measure.

Caleb just blinked, almost convinced he’d misheard. _Cay_ was not a name Fjord had ever called him in front of other people. It was for afterglow pillow talk and lazy mornings and just before ‘I love you’. There was no particular reason they kept it to themselves but they did, and if Fjord was using it now then that meant he was more scared than Caleb thought.  
“Jester can patch me up with a couple of bandages. Then just give me an hour or two and I’ll be alright to walk. I need to rest, that’s all,” he said gently, bringing Fjord’s hand to his lips so he could press a kiss to it. He left behind a red stain from the blood colouring his mouth, but they both pretended he hadn’t.

His words were lies, Fjord knew that. This wasn’t the kind of injury that went away in a couple of hours. It was only going to get worse until Jester could rest and cast some healing spells, but he had to admire Caleb’s sheer determination. He could run with that for a while.

“It’s a long way back. Can you turn Frumpkin into a horse or something?” Fjord asked, knowing the answer but wanting to keep Caleb talking and conscious, maybe make him smile a little.

Caleb thought for a long second – longer than he’d like and longer than normal – but eventually the corner of his lips quirked up.  
“I could make him a sea horse?” He suggested. It was something he’d tried early on, but it didn’t often have its uses.

Laughing, Fjord just shook his head. “That might not work quite as well.”  
“Maybe not,” Caleb smiled, wincing as a new spark of pain joined the pre-existing waves coursing through his body. It was getting worse.

Fjord caught the movement, adjusting Caleb in his arms just a little to try and make him more comfortable. The first thing he was going to do when this was all over and Caleb was better, because he has to convince himself that Caleb _would_ recover, was to look up healing spells and see if he could manage to learn any.  
“If you die… I will never forgive myself. Even if Jester brings you back. Again,” he mumbled, pressing his lips to Caleb’s forehead. He knew it wasn’t his fault – that was entirely down to the troll that should be glad it was already dead so Fjord didn’t have to dismantle its body piece by piece in retribution he desperately wanted – but he felt like he could have done more, somehow. Maybe seen the thing heading for Caleb and taken it out, maybe reacted faster and stopped it clawing him. Anything.

“I won’t die,” Caleb insisted again, but the more blood he lost the less confident he was getting in the phrase. “How about this: if I feel like I’m about to die, I’ll cast the spell,” he offered, wanting the frown on Fjord’s face to go away.  
“No you won’t. I know you,” Fjord sighed. “I wish there was a way to reverse the effects and then I could cast it on-”

Pulling on his hand as tightly as he had the energy to, Caleb silenced him.  
“I don’t want you hurting yourself for me. It’s an attack spell, Fjord. One you use on your enemies to cause them pain, to sap life from them. You’ve used it before, you’ve seen. It’s agony,” he explained, his voice sharp.  
“It would be less painful then watching you suffer, that’s for sure,” Fjord protested, but Caleb just shook his head and leaned back until he could rest against Fjord’s shoulder, turning to hide against his neck.  
“Well, casting it on you would do me more pain than it could possibly heal,” he mumbled, lips grazing Fjord’s skin in a way that would usually turn him on if this wasn’t a life-or-death situation that Caleb might not make it out of.

Fjord was trying very hard not to cry. It wasn’t something he normally tended to do, but this seemed like a sensible exception. Swallowing thickly, he rested his cheek against the top of Caleb’s head and looked up to find Nott watching them both sadly, and Jester sorting through a pile of cloth she’d pulled from her healer’s kit.

“Jester, could you…?” he asked, gesturing towards Caleb’s wounds.  
“Of course!” she exclaimed, sitting up on her knees and gently pushing at Fjord’s hand. “Move,” she ordered.

Fjord was hesitant, but he was pretty sure Jester knew what she was doing and he was only in the way. So he lifted his hand away from Caleb’s stomach, wincing at the squelching sound it made. Instinctually he wanted to run his fingers through Caleb’s hair and hug him close, but his hand was slick with a glove of blood and he didn’t think the wizard would appreciate getting even more covered in it than he already was.

Caleb had gone mostly still in his arms but Fjord could still feel the puff of shallow breaths against his neck and the slow rise and fall of his chest, so he knew his soul was sticking around, at least for now. He was still in a bad way, though. Ordinarily he would have flinched away from Jester’s hands as she ripped open his shirt so she could get to the gouges more easily, but he didn’t even move. Instead it was Fjord who recoiled and looked away.

“Silly boy. You’ve seen more of him than this,” Jester tutted as she kept working, cleaning up as much of the blood as she could and preparing some thread and a needle so she could sew crude stitches through Caleb’s flesh to hold it together until she got her magic back.  
“He’s usually bleeding less,” Fjord pointed out, not even bothering to chide Jester for mentioning private moments that didn’t concern her, as he had to do so often.

He wasn’t opposed to looking at Caleb. On the contrary, he loved it. It wasn’t often that Caleb took off everything and just let him look, but tracing soft skin in the privacy of their own room wasn’t the same as seeing blood soaked battle wounds marring Caleb’s body.

Jester just shrugged and started sewing, with Caleb jumping slightly with each prick. They didn’t have anything to numb the pain for him, but it was barely anything when added to the existing agony he was in. If he whimpered against Fjord’s neck once or twice, no one had to know. He’d never pretended to be brave.

When Jester finally set down the needle she turned to the cloth bandages and wrapped the wound best she could. All it needed to do was hold till morning, when she could finally fix this.

“Eight hours of sleep is all I need,” she explained to Fjord as she stepped away to give her handiwork a look over. It was the best she could do given the circumstances.

Nodding slowly, careful not to disturb Caleb too much, Fjord thought it over. Getting to the nearest town was going to take at least a couple of hours, and he didn’t think it would be a sensible idea to move Caleb that far. They could always just camp outside the way they had originally done, but it might not be the safest plan and they hadn’t done it in a while – not since Caleb had learned a spell to summon a mansion. Fjord just wasn’t sure he was in any state to cast it.

“Caleb, darlin’, can you cast a different spell? The mansion. The quicker Jester can rest, the quicker she can heal you,” he said, as gently as he could manage.

Shuffling back just a little so he could look up at Fjord with bleary eyes, Caleb considered. He didn’t have to move much to cast, and it was a spell he was familiar with. With any luck, he’d be able to handle harnessing the energy. He just needed someone to help ground him.

“Help me?” he asked, more open and honest than Fjord has ever heard him. Caleb was never one to easily ask for help.  
“You never taught me that one,” Fjord said, regretfully. If he could cast if for Caleb, he would.

Caleb shook his head. “I know, just help me focus.”

He shifted a little and it took Fjord a couple of seconds to realise he was trying to reach for his spell book. Before he could help, Nott was already tugging the book out of its holster and placing it into Caleb’s shaking hands.

Looking down at the book, Caleb sighed sadly. The cover was stained with blood that soaked through to at least half the pages. The writing was still visible, tiny black scrawl against a now crimson backdrop, but they all knew how much Caleb hated his book getting even slightly scuffed. This was irreparable.

“We can get you a new book?” Nott suggested, ever the optimist.  
Caleb patted her on the shoulder. He didn’t really want a new book, he wanted the one that had been with him through everything to not have borne witness to his lifeblood, but he knew she meant well. Flipping through the pages, mourning the ones that were now stuck together with congealed blood, he found the entry for the spell that would summon a now familiar mansion. Nott had already scrabbled around in his components pouch to hand him the small collection of items he needed to cast it and he took them gratefully. before reaching out to thread his fingers with Fjord’s and trying to gather enough energy to pour into the spell.  
Fjord wasn’t sure what good he could be, exactly, but he would never turn down the chance to hold Caleb’s hand. And, if Caleb needed him, he would always be there. He tried to force as much energy through their connected fingers as he could, not sure if it would help but unsure what else to do. It seemed to be enough. After a minute or so, the usual blue portal, glowing gently, popped into existence and Caleb slumped back with a deep sigh.

“Home sweet home,” he said with a weak smile.

He pushed up on his hands to try and lift himself up, but he didn’t get very far before his arms buckled and fell back against Fjord with a groan of pain. Fjord was about to try and lift him, but before he could Yasha was at their side and picking Caleb up with practised ease.

“Here,” she offered, far more gentle than usual as she carried him.

“Yasha, really, I’m fine,” Caleb protested, but they all knew he couldn’t walk alone, and Yasha was the strongest of all of them.  
“Shut up and stop wriggling,” she ordered, still kind but with that normal biting tone that they loved her in spite of.

Fjord clambered to his feet, his legs protesting after having had Caleb’s weight against them for so long, and followed beside Yasha.

Ducking though the portal, she carried Caleb through the simple foyer of his mansion. He kept it as modest as he could, only making the things his friends asked for or needed. Except the library. The library was just for him.

If the mansion was a little out of order, a little fuzzy, then no one mentioned it as they all filed in. Caleb was hardly at the top of his spellcasting game. He was pretty certain the spell would hold for its normal duration, but it wasn’t as perfect as he’d like and he was trying to ignore the areas where the walls were the wrong colour and corridors ended with nothing instead of the more superfluous rooms he hadn’t been able to muster.

Yasha headed for the stairs that led to the bedrooms, intending to deposit Caleb somewhere soft.

“This is demeaning,” he groaned. It was complaining for the sake of image, really. He knew he wouldn’t be able to walk by himself.  
“You’ll live,” Yasha shrugged.

It sounded like an order. One Caleb really hoped he could obey.

Jester squeezed past on her way up the stairs, rushing to get into bed so she could have access to her healing magic as soon as possible.  
“See you in eight hours! Don’t be dead,” she shouted as she zipped up the flight and round onto the corridor. Caleb just about managed to register what she’d said before he heard the door to her bedroom slam.

Suddenly Nott was scrambling up Yasha’s back, barely making her flinch from the extra weight, and peeking over her shoulder to look down at her disgruntled friend.

“Are you okay, Caleb?” she asked, concern behind every word.

He was really bad at lying to her – he’d learned that pretty early on. Normally he was a passable liar, never using it for _evil_ , per say, but making use of it when he needed to. That wasn’t going to work with Nott.  
“I will be,” he said instead, purposely avoiding directly answering her question.

She frowned, not quite buying it. Instead of pushing the matter she redistributed her weight so she could hang onto Yasha with one hand, and held the other out to Caleb.

“Do you want to cast that spell Fjord was talking about on me?” she suggested.  
“No!” Caleb was horrified. “I don’t want to cast it on anyone I care about.”

Before Nott could make her case, Yasha reached Caleb’s bedroom door. Or, more accurately, Fjord’s bedroom door, but Caleb had moved in months ago. His old room had since been absorbed back into the mansion and he got to spend every night with his boyfriend, so he was pretty happy with the arrangement.

Gently laying Caleb down on the bed, Yasha muttered something akin to ‘get well soon’ and hastened off to find Beau. She could sense the tension in the room between Fjord, who continued to hover, and Caleb, and she knew it wasn’t her place to be in the middle of it. Nott begrudgingly followed, veering off to her own room and smiling when Frumpkin appeared at her feet. Caleb always sent him after her when he didn’t want her to be sad.

Fjord lingered awkwardly in the middle of the room, and just as Caleb was about to ask what the matter was, he finally spoke up again.

“Maybe I should…?” He trailed off, picking up a blanket from the end of the bed and gesturing to the floor. He wasn’t about to leave Caleb alone, but he didn’t want to accidently roll onto him in the night, or pull at his stitches.  
“Why?” Caleb asked, frowning. The last thing he wanted was to be fighting with Fjord right now. He feeling woozy to the point of near collapse and he wanted someone to hold him. Wanted _Fjord_ to hold him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Fjord explained, but Caleb wasn’t having any of it.  
“You won’t,” he said decisively. “Get over here, I want to sleep.”

That was all it took. Fjord returned the blanket to the foot of the bed and climbed up beside Caleb, careful not to touch the bandages. They were exactly where he’d normally rest an arm when they slept together, so he fought instinct and instead let Caleb lie back against his chest. He wasn’t planning on sleeping much anyway.

-

By Fjord’s best guess, Caleb slept fitfully for a couple of hours. He drifted in and out of consciousness, pain stopping him from getting any real kind of rest. After an hour or so the door creaked open and Fjord looked up to see Nott sneaking inside the room. She met Fjord’s eyes with a guilty look and froze, but he wasn’t about to turn her away.

“How is he?” she asked, quiet and afraid.

“Sleeping,” Fjord said, because that was the best news he could give. “Best he can, at least.”

Nott slowly nodded her head, hovering. He knew she wanted to stay, and he understood the desire to be near Caleb to check he was okay. If someone asked him to leave his boyfriend for one moment in the state he was in, he’d have knocked them unconscious before obeying.

Climbing up onto the foot of the bed, Nott curled up into a tight ball at Caleb’s feet. Fjord listened as her breathing evened out, seemingly able to find some level of comfort from the proximity to her friend. At least she didn’t have to see how deep the cut in Caleb’s stomach went.

Fjord couldn’t find sleep. He stroked his fingers through Caleb’s hair, hating how cold his body felt. His breathing was uneven and whimpers of pain escaped his lips far more often than Fjord was comfortable with. Sweat was building up along his brow and when uncontrollable shaking overtook his body, Fjord wasn’t sure what to do. Calling for Jester wouldn’t do any good – it hadn’t been long enough for her to regain enough energy back to cast any kind of useful spell. No one else could do anything, so he just held Caleb tighter and prayed to every god he had ever heard of in the hope that one of them would be benevolent enough see fit to get them through the night.

No such luck.

The first inclination that something was wrong, or even worse, was the collapse of the pocket plane around them. They’d never waited in the mansion long enough for the 24-hour spell duration to come to its natural end, but this was what Fjord imagined it would be like. With a flash of blue energy, everything around them disappeared into nothing and they found themselves thrown out onto the forest floor, tangled in a mess on top of one another with a chorus of groans from the impact.

“What happened?” Nott asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she stretched out her now bruised limbs.

“It’s Caleb,” Fjord whispered, his voice thick with tears.

The wizard in his arms wasn’t with them anymore. He’d made it as long as he could but between the pain and the whispers in his mind telling him to let go and sink back into the darkness, Caleb’s spirit had lost its grip on the material plane. The spell had ended with his life.

For a long moment, they were all silent. No one really knew what to say, waiting for Fjord or Nott to make the first move – they knew Caleb best.

Fjord had been through this with Caleb before. He didn’t have the best luck or the most fortitude when it came to battle, even if his spellcasting was incredible, and Fjord had watched him end up unconscious dozens of times. Death had only happened once before and Jester had been right beside him, bringing him back in seconds, but it had still been the worst moment of Fjord’s life. Watching the body he usually knew to be so animated with life, the lips he kissed and the hands he held and the eyes he always felt so much love from, falling limp and empty had been hell. And now Jester couldn’t fix it. Fjord’s first impulse was to scream his voice hoarse, but that wasn’t going to help so he swallowed back the impulse and instead cleared his mind to form a plan.

“Jester, get back to sleep,” he ordered, relieved when she didn’t even argue or offer a clever remark as she dug around in her pack to free the bedroll she rarely used anymore and set it up. “Nott, Beau, Yasha, Molly – can you guys take the watches for what’s left of the night? I don’t… I can’t leave him.”

His voice caught in his throat as he finished, but no one mentioned it.  
“Of course,” Molly nodded, turning to confer with the women about who would stay up first.

Instead of joining in the talks, Nott walked over to where Fjord was holding Caleb.

“Nott?” Fjord asked, barely looking up from the body. He wanted to think of him as whole, as alive, but the chill settling in forced him to acknowledge otherwise.

Nott thought about turning and leaving, doing as she was asked and taking a shift of watch like they’d done before Caleb had learned the mansion spell. But she didn’t want to leave.  
“I’ve been his friend longer than you’ve loved him, longer than you’ve even known him. I’m staying,” she said, crossing her arms and standing firm. Caleb meant too much to her to pretend he wasn’t lying dead on the ground.

Fjord blinked, frowning. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been monopolising Caleb for the last few hours. Maybe the last few hours he’d ever see.  
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry,” Fjord admitted. He gestured to the ground beside him, encouraging Nott to sit down.

It looked like she would, for a moment, but then she turned to rifle though her pack instead, coming back with a blanket that she spread over Caleb in a fruitless attempt to keep him warm.

For a while, they sat in silence. Fjord was still cradling Caleb’s body but Nott was plaiting his hair like Jester had taught her to do. Eventually Fjord couldn’t stay quiet anymore – it made things seem too still, too dead. He had to talk to Caleb like he could still hear, or he was going to go crazy.  
“I love you,” he mumbled, kissing Caleb’s clammy forehead. “I love you so much. You need to get back here, Caleb, do you hear me? You promised you wouldn’t die on me again. I need you to be here.”

Nott pretended she didn’t hear. It was clearly things that were only meant for Caleb’s ears, so she just sat and continued with her plaits until half of Caleb’s head was covered in braids. Fjord kept talking. He was trying to convince himself that if there was always something for him to listen to then Caleb’s spirit wouldn’t go far. In the end it had the same effect as screaming would have done, only over a longer period of time. When the sun started to crest the horizon through the trees, his words were scratchy and painful, but just as desperate.

“Fjord?”

When Jester put her hand on his shoulder, breaking him out of his litany, he snapped his neck round, spooked. As soon as he realised how long it had been and who he was facing, his eyes went wide.  
“Are you rested?” he asked, desperate. He needed Caleb back, they all did.

“Yes,” Jester nodded. She gestured to the body Fjord was protectively holding. “Can I?”

“Please,” Fjord begged.

He shifted so Jester had access to work her healing magic, watching as she rummaged around in her components pouch for the materials she needed.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he voiced quietly, terrified of it becoming reality.  
“Then we try something else,” Jester said, matter of fact. “But we start here.”

He couldn’t argue with that. Nott moved away, leaving behind a complex pattern of braids that had Jester smiling, to give her the space she needed to work.  
Pulling a diamond out and holding it in a clenched fist, Jester closed her eyes and mentally reached out to tap into her power.

“Talk to him,” she recommended softly, to either of the friends close to her.

Fjord looked to Nott, aware that he’d been talking all night, but she just nodded to him with an encouraging half-smile.

“Cay?” Fjord said tentatively, brushing some of the only unbraided hair Caleb had left away from his forehead. “I know you’re there. I know you’re holding on still. You promised. Please, come back. We all need you here. I love you. Always will.” The tears he’d been trying to hold back all night started falling.

Nott couldn’t help but add her voice to the rope they were reaching out to Caleb’s spirit.

“He’s right, Caleb. Who else is going to pull off cons with me or put up with my stealing or lie for me when I get caught? You shouldn’t go. Not now and not like this.”

Jester spread her hands out over Caleb’s chest, the diamond underneath them, and willed all the life energy she could muster into him. With a bright flash of light, just about contained by her hands, the diamond was consumed by the energy, magnifying it and providing a beacon for Caleb to follow home.

For a couple of moments, nothing happened. Caleb’s body didn’t move, Jester didn’t dare remove her hands, and Nott and Fjord couldn’t bring themselves to breathe. And then, with a painful gasp, Caleb lurched back into his body, coughing and impulsively fighting against the grip he was in before realising it was Fjord and relaxing.

Nott surged forwards, wrapping her arms around Caleb’s waist and hugging tight and Jester took a step away, her work done.  
“Careful,” Caleb groaned, but he patted Nott’s hair and hugged her back as best he could.  
“Am I hurting you?” she asked, pulling back with concern in her eyes.  
“Everything aches,” Caleb admitted.

Nott bit her lip and sat back down, not wanting to make things worse.

Taking a few minutes just to breathe, Caleb relished in the feeling of being alive. He’d been hovering so close to his body for hours, trying to get back, but it hadn’t been until Jester had fashioned a bridge with her magic that he could cross over. Turning to find the tiefling, he reached out a hand to clasp hers.  
“Thank you,” he said, genuine and relieved.

“It’s nothing,” Jester brushed it off. “I’m the cleric.” Then she turned her attention to Fjord, her gaze raising to just above Caleb’s head. “Make sure he bathes – he’s covered in blood.”

With that, she backed away, heading off to let the others know Caleb was okay. After a short moment, Nott decided to follow.

Caleb had been dreading this conversation from the moment he slipped away from his body. He almost didn’t want to turn around, afraid of the look he would find in Fjord’s eyes, but he knew it was better to have this conversation face to face, so he begrudgingly shifted out of Fjord’s arms and moved to sit opposite him, clutching at his still painful but no longer mortally wounded stomach – Jester’s magic had gone some way to seal the gashes.

“Hi,” he offered, unsure what else to say.

Fjord was angry. Not at Caleb, but at the world. He was relieved and shaken and wrecked from a night of worry. He was… glad to have Caleb back.

“You scared me,” he admitted, reaching up to brush his knuckles down Caleb’s cheek and marvelling at the colour and life in his face. He’d never looked more beautiful.  
“I tried, Fjord. I really tried to stay here,” Caleb explained. He tried to run his hand through his hair but he found his fingers getting caught in braids and couldn’t help but smile.

God, that smile. Fjord never wanted to look away from it. He moved closer still, until he could hold Caleb’s face in his hands and kiss him again and again. Caleb wasn’t complaining, kissing back like his friends weren’t probably all watching this happen. When Fjord finally drew back, he rested their foreheads together, not wanting to be any further away.

“I talked to you, all night,” he mumbled. He’d recounted memories and favourite stories Caleb had told him of life before they met, and endless declarations of love.  
“I know,” Caleb whispered back. “I heard. I talked back, but I don’t think you could hear me.”

“I can now. Tell me.”

And for a while, Caleb did. Until Molly came over, loath to interrupt but suggesting that they perhaps get back to some form of civilisation so Caleb could rest better. They both had to agree that it was a good idea.

It was a slow journey; Caleb couldn’t walk fast and refused Yasha’s, Jester’s and Fjord’s offers to carry him, but no one spoke a word of complaint. Whilst he wanted to walk by himself, Caleb never let go of Fjord’s hand. He both needed the support and wanted the reassurance that he was alive that he got each time Fjord rubbed circles into the back of his hand with this thumb. He would never take strength from him by means of magic, but this would always be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that this does not follow the rules of Dungeons and Dragons when it comes to things like the Mansion spell ending with Caleb dying and the fact Caleb could roll hit dice over a short rest etc. I switched out D&D logic for more regular logic when it felt narratively appropriate.


End file.
